Thursday (15 Jul) - Wild Steps it Up

Thursday (15 Jul) - Wild Steps it Up

Wild missed the Tuesday night raid, getting in game only long enough to let the raid leader know I wouldn't be able to make it. On Wednesday, though, there was time for some adventure.

The MM guild is making a concerted effort to keep guildies engaged as we all wait for the Cataclysm expansion to come out. In addition to the two ICC10 raid groups, they've announced that weekly Ruby Sanctum raid on Saturdays, and a "Mystery" raid scheduled on Sundays. Depending on what is going on over the weekend, Wild would like to try to get in on those.

The guild is trying something different with the ICC raids as well. With two raid groups now running, sorting out who shows up and when, and then putting together two balanced raids has been taking as much as an hour out of our raid time. So they decided to stagger the raid start times, with one raid still trying to get off the ground at 6pm, and the other moved to a 6:30pm start. When Wild checked in on Wednesday night, I learned that only one raid group started on Tuesday, and the second raid group had been moved to Wednesday with a 6:30pm start. So raiders who could be in game by 6pm should show up for the Tuesday run, with those who prefer a 6:30pm start running on Wednesday. Ok, so which group do they need Wild in, if they need me at all?

The Tuesday group (group 1) had all three of their healers back for Wednesday, so Wild got an invite to the Wednesday group (group 2). Wild's favorite tank, Bd, was tanking, and the raid leader was Lady Hunter, who Wild hadn't had a chance to raid with for awhile. We got started by 7pm, and when the group has both Bd and Lady Hunter, you know it is going to be fun and, well, how to describe it? Full of surprises.

Bd is perhaps the best tank I've ever run with. Not only is he an outstanding tank, he always makes sure that everyone knows their role for each and every fight. When things don't work he make corrections in a very positive way, and often in whispers so no one gets embarrassed. He also loves a good joke, and his raids are always fun. Lady Hunter adds even more merriment to our raids, to include a steady stream of oneupmanship going on between her and her husband, who was the off tank with us this night. Topping all of that was Pch, one of those players with more level 80s than I have toons. He was on his deathknight for this run, but I've seen him on his shaman and his hunter, and probably others that I didn't know was him.

Pch got us off to a "normal" start for this group on the initial trash mobs before the first boss. Bd was setting assignments, and mentioned that Pch would be doing the first pull using Death Grip, a DK talent that from some distance away can grab and pull a mob to where he is standing. All Pch seemed to have heard was "Pch pull mob," which he did. We hadn't even finished buffing, and here came a whole group of mobs.

Shortly after that we managed to release all four of the heavy hitting mobs that are triggered by traps in the floor, traps we had a rogue to diffuse, but somehow didn't. We survived both of those because we all know that crazy things like this are kind of the norm for us and we stay on our toes. Some raid leaders would go ballistic over mistakes like that. For us, it adds flavor to the evening. :P

We did wipe on Marrowgar, on a non-attempt triggered when Pch played Dare with Marrowgar and Pch's ghoul pet got a little tpo close. Marrowgar ate the ghoul and then proceeded to kill off the rest of us.

On our first real attempt on Marrowgar, we may be the first raid to try to kill him with only four raiders. We started with ten raiders, of course, and we got him down to about 25% even though we lost a tank and had to rez him, and then the priest healer died and had to be battle rezzed as well. I should point out that we only had two healers, even though we usually have three. The healing assignments looked like this:

main tank healer - holy priest
off tank healer - Wild
raid healing - we don't need no stinking raid healer

At 25% we lost a tank again, and with no battle rezzes left we were stuck with just one. That was a monumental challenge for the healers due to a stacking debuff that keeps increasing the damage on the tank. Both Wild and the priest were going crazy keeping the tank and ourselves healed, while the DPS started dying one at a time. Despite the attrition in DPS, we got Marrowgar down to 6%. That's when the priest died again. We now had only one tank and only one healer - and only two DPS. Maybe because there were so few of us Wild was able to keep up with the healing, but the four of us battled Marrowgar and we brought him down. Wild set what I think is his best health per second ever on an ICC fight - 5361 hps and 53.8% of the total healing. The priest also had an impressive 4186 hps with 39.9% healing.

That energized us even further, and we pounded through Deathwhisper, the Gunship, the weekly raid special quest to kill the Rotting Frost Giant, and Saurfang. We cleared the first wing. We had several raiders who had never gone past Saurfang. We all trooped into the portal behind Saurfang's dias, and into the second wing. Just inside the second wing there is a short hallway that splits into a T shape with halls going to the left and the right. There are nozzles set into the walls at several points and opposite each other. These nozzles spew out a freezing white stream of frost that is instantly fatal if caught in it. Think of it as a new raiders initiation into the second wing. Wild has done this part enough to know how the nozzles worked. Wild and Pch were the first to approach the nozzles. We waited until the first stream subsided and then scooted past the nozzles, watching ahead of us and them slamming to a stop when the next set of nozzles began streaming frost. Two raiders that watched us waited too long to follow and got caught in the stream from the first nozzles when they resumed. They died. Wild and Pch knew the pattern, though. Wait for the stream to stop, run to the next set of nozzles, stop and wait for that stream to start and subside, and run to the next, turning the corner of the T and continuing that pattern until running out of nozzles. I think five raiders died, a couple of them twice, until they had picked up the pattern.

We then cleared the trash, including the two mini-bosses Precious and Stinky, and we stood in front of Festergut. We were out of time, though, and Festergut would have to wait until Thursday.

So now it's Thursday - wow, that day went by fast, didn't it? - and we have eight returning toons and two new ones for the evening raid. The two new ones are both healers, Lady Hunter on her pally healer, and another new priest, a disc priest this time. We were going with three healers given the additional difficulty of the second wing bosses.

We tackled Festergut first. For most of our raiders this was new territory. It took three tries, but we brought Festergut down. On the final win Wild broke his own healing record:

#1: Wild, 5524 hps, 41% total healing
#2: pally healer, 4042/28%
#3: Disc priest, 4143/27%

Shield absorption is included in the pally and priest numbers.

With a lot of time left in our evening, we worked our way to the second boss in the second wing, Rotface. Rotface is a royal pain. There are a lot of things to remember, and every piece has to work perfectly to pull off a win. This is a battle that takes a lot of practice. We tried 7 times, the group learning a bit more each time. But we are far from being able to beat this boss.

The MM guild hopes to hold our two raiding groups together for next week. We do need to have some consistent attendance, particularly now that we are into the second wing, so that we can build on what we've learned. For once Wild would like to eventually be able to say he cleared the entire raid, something that has mostly eluded him with the exceptions of Kara and Naxx.

Wild is getting some mild pressure again to move over to the MM guild, saying it would be easier to include Wild in MM guild events, and that the last of the old timers from FS would come with him if Wild only agreed to come. I doubt thats completely true, but Wild is tempted. Always tempted. I hold on to the thought, though, that the best place to be doing 25 man raids once Cataclysm arrives is still FS. Wild will continue to straddle both worlds.

In the meantime Naithipe moves through her world oblivious to all the drama around her. Her latest demand is for khorium ore. A lot of it. Of course it is rare. Of course it is expensive. And of course it will take hours and hours of someone's time to collect it. Of course, that doesn't bother Naithipe at all.